IN BASS FISHING, certain things are difficult if not impossible to teach. However, it doesn’t make them any less important. Quite the opposite. Without a guidebook or rules, they are often the critical elements less analyzed and more left to the moment. One of these is stubbornness.
Among the professional ranks, perhaps no one has benefited more greatly or suffered more conspicuously from the yin and yang of being stubborn than 2022 Bassmaster Classic champion Jason Christie.
Self-admittedly stubborn, this Oklahoman doesn’t run from the label; he embraces it.
“Stubbornness is my greatest strength and my greatest weakness. I’m not saying it’s the right way; I’m just saying it’s my way, and I’ve had a damn successful career out of it.”
Even so, when it came to his Classic performances, he had grown tired of the inevitable references to Grand Lake in 2016 and Lake Hartwell in 2018 where, as a final-day leader, he couldn’t close either deal. These echoes of the past were reverberating even louder at the most recent Hartwell Classic in 2022 when Christie once
